The effect of gender, valence and arousal of Persian emotional words on time perception

A range of studies have shown that the time perception is influenced by numerous factors. In the present study the hypothesis was that gender and emotional dimensions (valance and arousal) of Persian words influence time perception. fifty-eight volunteer undergraduate female students of the University of Tabriz participated in the experiment. A set of emotional Persian words (in the five dimensions including happy, calm, neutral, angery and sad) were projected to all participants for 800 and 2000 milliseconds (ms) via a computerized test. The participants were asked to reproduce the words. Three-factor ANOVA with repeated measures, one-way ANOVA, paired and independent t-tests were used to analyze the data. The results rvealed that the rate of error (underestimation) for the long duration was more than the short duration. Coefficient of variation for the happy and calm words was higher than the angery, sad and neutral words. These findings indicate an effect of emotion on time perception. The results are interpreted in the framework of the intentional time perception and arousal time perception models.